Merritt "misspeaks"

The Stylus would like to run a factual correction based on information relayed in an interview with potential Brockport Student Government (BSG) presidential candidate Jack Merritt.

In an interview following his campaign announcement on Saturday, Jan. 27, Merritt stated, “I spoke with the current president and [members of the student court] … we went through both our speeches, and we said, is the language good? And they approved them. We have [some] of the most powerful leaders of BSG who have said it is okay.”

According to both Merritt and current BSG President Elisha Madison, such examinations of speeches and phrasing did not occur. Merritt states that he met with Chief Justice Kate Demsky regarding election guidelines and specifics, and spoke briefly with President Madison and student council member Lily Boyd about the phrasing of “hopeful candidacy” to align with the guidelines as he was making the announcement prior to the official petitioning period. In a meeting with Demsky, Merritt did not go into detail about the specifics of his speech, as Demsky is petitioning to run as Vice President with another candidate and did not find doing so to be appropriate.

“I misspoke and I apologize for it,” Merritt said.

Following Merritt’s public announcement, he states that Madison wanted to meet to go over the language used, and that such a meeting did occur, during which Madison and Demsky made several inquiries pertaining to the language used throughout the event by Merritt and his campaign team.

“They had seemed very upset over [the announcement] which got me a little upset because it was a big day for me and the rest of the people there,” Merritt said. “I came [to the meeting] out of respect for [Madison] and the office.”

Notice of the inaccuracies of the previous article covering Merritt’s hopeful campaign announcement were brought to the attention of The Stylus by Madison.

“… speeches were never brought let alone approved by myself or members of the student court,” Madison wrote in an email.